Review: THE BLINDING KNIFE by Brent Weeks

Rating: 5/5 stars

**This entire review is filled with SPOILERS for The Blinding Knife.**

This book was incredible! I am so glad I’m reading this series right now because it is everything I want and more. This review will be somewhat disjointed because I type my thoughts as I read so there’s usually little connection from one thought to the next. But I have SO much to say and speculate about this story so let’s jump right in.

I think Kip is the Lightbringer. He fits all the descriptions. He even questioned it himself. Other people questioned it. When he was carrying Janus she said she knew who the Lightbringer was. All evidence is pointing to Kip; he’s the obvious choice. But because he’s the obvious choice it probably isn’t going to be him after all. I bet we’ll have to wait until The Burning White to find out who the Lightbringer really is, or if he even exists at all.

Speaking of Janus Borig though, how cool is she? I’m very intrigued by her. She can see into the past and probably also the future and can depict whole life stories in her magical paintings. And she has singlehandedly created the game of Nine Kings and designed every card in that game. (How did literal fortune cards ever get turned into a casual card game though?) Her ability as a Mirror is my favorite in this series, even more than drafting. I’m so sad that she died. She had such a large store of secrets that I wanted to keep hearing, but at least some of her original cards were saved.

What’s especially interesting about the Nine Kings cards that Kip was going through was that there was a card labeled Black Luxin. Kip didn’t pay any mind to this card and just kept going through the stack, but that is confirmation that black luxin does exist! Which means white luxin must also exist.

It seems pretty obvious that the blinding knife is made of white luxin, but I’d like to know who drafted it and where it came from. When Gavin was stabbed with it, he lost blue. When Vox was stabbed with it, Gavin lost green. How did Gavin lose green if he wasn’t stabbed with the blade a second time? What happens when the blade has grown to maximum size and all the jewels on the blade are glowing and the blade has absorbed all the colors? I guess we’ll be finding out in The Broken Eye, seeing as this was the blade’s state at the end of this book.

I have a theory: the blinding knife was originally used by the Prism in the Sun Day ceremony when he has to free the drafters who are close to breaking the halo. Instead of killing them, like what happens now, he would only take their colors from them so they couldn’t draft themselves into insanity. I hope we do find out more about how the blinding knife is used because it seems to be able to cause multiple effects on people. When Gavin was stabbed at the end of The Black Prism, he lost the ability to see and draft one color. When he was stabbed at the end of The Blinding Knife, he lost the ability to see and draft all colors. When Andross was stabbed, his broken halo receded and he gained more energy as if he had become a younger drafter again. Why didn’t the knife take Andross’s ability to draft colors also? Instead, it strengthened his drafting. Very peculiar.

As much as I hate Andross, I think Weeks does a great job at crafting his character. I’m very curious to see what he will do in the next book now that he has essentially regained his ability to draft, especially since he even commented that this changes everything. And also now that he’s no longer a color wight, which I totally saw coming, by the way. After the chapter that featured the Nine Kings card called ~The Master~, I suspected he had probably become a color wight and no one knew because he was always in the dark and always covered his eyes when he wasn’t.

But Andross went from being a color wight to being a normal drafter again, which means it is possible to affect the halo with the knife, or possibly with white luxin itself? What would the Color Prince do with this information, or with the knife? He is pro-wight, but only because he’s against killing drafters who are about to break the halo. Would he still let people break the halo and be free, or would he keep everyone within the safe limits of drafting because that’s still not something the Chromeria is willing to do? Ooh, I cannot wait to read more of this intricate narrative.

I really want to know more about the legendary colors: black, white, and paryl (and chi, but that hasn’t come up in the story yet). Can paryl do more than see armor on people? How many paryl drafters are actually out there? Is solid paryl actually another form of luxin that’s a different color? Can the Prism see or draft paryl, or chi? He is the Prism, after all, and we already know he can draft the legendary white luxin.

I think it’s interesting that real Gavin had just accepted that he is Dazen now, and when real Dazen visits him in the prison, the prisoner addresses him as Gavin even though he’s not. I would have thought that real Gavin would be headstrong in his identity, that real Dazen couldn’t take that away from him too, his last shred of freedom. But he was going insane and maybe started to believe that he was Dazen by this point.

When the real Dazen killed the real Gavin, I did not expect that at all. What was the whole point of keeping him locked up for sixteen years then, just to kill him? At first, mercy meant keeping him alive, until mercy came to mean ending his life because of his insanity. And the last line of that chapter hit me so hard: “[Gavin] looked over at the wall, where the prisoner had been glancing repeatedly, but he saw nothing but the reflection of a dead man.” Oh wow. That’s heavy. Talk about foreshadowing.

I was impressed by how smart Dazen was in breaking out of the prisons, and by Gavin for creating them in the first place. I was seriously scared a few times that Dazen was finally going to break free, but Gavin outsmarted us all. It is ironic though that the prison Gavin spent only a month constructing held Dazen for sixteen years, while the two prisons that he spent a year constructing barely held him for a month.

I also finally saw the irony in this book of the connection between the definition of the word guile and the characters whose name is Guile. As was stated at one point to the question “Was he a good man?” was the answer, “He was a Guile,” as if that explained everything we needed to know. Weeks does such a good job of crafting his characters and their traits and personalities.

One character who started out as an insignificant tertiary character but who grew into a substantial secondary character was Adrasteia. She really grew on me the longer I read the story, and I like her now. I hated her mistress though, so I was so glad when Kip won her through Nine Kings.

I love Kip’s journey of learning to play Nine Kings and how much he dedicated to learning the cards and practicing the techniques. I mean I hated the scenes when he actually had to play against Andross because Andross is a piece of dirt, but I still liked Kip’s devotion to the game.

Kip isn’t my favorite character but his story is the most interesting to read about. I love how Weeks is able to show how the Blackguard training aided in his character progression. He becomes physically stronger, a better drafter, and more disciplined of speech. His story is really one of him growing up and coming into himself. He used to be (and still sometimes is) very focused on himself, but now he is much more aware of how his actions matter and actually affect others, and he has matured so much since the beginning of book one. I’m looking forward to seeing him grow up more throughout each book in the series.

I think it’s interesting that the Color Prince is trying to create his own Spectrum but is just using the gods instead because he wants to be more powerful than the Chromeria. I think some of his philosophies that the Chromeria is wrong, etc. make so much sense and I can totally see where he’s coming from and why he has supporters; however, he is going about enacting his ideas in the wrong way, which is why he’s a problem.

I do think Liv was misguided when she chose to stay in the Color Prince’s army. I think she finally has her freedom, and just like a child on their own for the first time without anyone telling them what to do, she is asserting her freedom and making poor decisions. Obviously she still loves her dad and respects him, and she even teared up just seeing his handwriting. I think down the road she will realize that she has made a big mistake by trusting Koios and there will be a big ordeal when she tries to leave him. Honestly, the only thing I’m upset about is Liv sleeping with Zymun and letting herself get pushed around by him, which is when I lost all respect for her. I still don’t hate Liv but I do think she is making some bad decisions right now. But in her defense, she’s not directly killing anyone by her own hand. I’m curious if she will still support Lord Omnichrome when he makes her actually kill people, especially if it’s someone close to her, because right now she’s mostly just there on the political side. But she’s not really free. Anytime she is faced with the horrific actions of the Prince, she drafts superviolet and hides behind the ability to become emotionless so she can justify what he’s doing and not have to think about how she’s supporting him by staying, even if she’s not directly taking the same evil actions that he is.

As for Zymun, I was happy to see him leave the Color Prince’s army, and I had hoped he was gone for good, but I was wrong. I was very surprised to learn that Zymun is Karris’s son that she left as a baby. I was wondering when that boy was going to show up, and it turns out it has been Zymun all along. He treated Kip like crap though even though he’s his “brother,” which really shows Zymun’s true nature and that he seeks only after power. One thing I am curious about was how Zymun found out that he was indeed Karris’s son, and I hope we discover these answers in the next book.

Even though I still feel like I don’t know much about Karris, I do really like her. I am so so happy about what happened between real Dazen and Karris. I have been waiting for him to tell her the truth since the beginning of The Black Prism, and they are so clearly meant to be together. Their scenes together just made me smile and giggle at their being in love. I love this subtle love story in this series and that it spanned all of books one and two and really built up the tension before anything actually happened.

I actually think that Weeks does a good job of portraying the differences between men and women without degrading women. I think he has said a lot in these books that is actually quite empowering for women, and I respect that. He understands (or at least writes as if he understands) a woman’s perspective, and I find myself relating to that on many occasions. (That’s not to say all the characters were respectful of women, though.)

The only thing I even slightly disliked about this book is that I had a hard time picturing the final battle scene, which is my own issue, not the book’s issue. For some reason, I just couldn’t play it out in my mind so I couldn’t follow along very well. I definitely liked the battle and fight scenes less than the other parts of the book when they’re learning about the properties of luxin or training to be Blackguards or having important conversations. I know the battles are cool because the characters get to show off their drafting abilities and use luxin to fight, but I am just way more interested in the plot of this book, so I felt like those fight scenes slowed me down from discovering more answers that I needed.

I really like Weeks’s writing style though. I find it very easy to fall into the story. One thing I love that he does is create a slow burn and make me work for some of the details. For example, the blinding knife was introduced in book one, we learned more details about it in book two, but there’s so much that’s still a mystery that will be revealed in book three and possibly even book four. His story isn’t rushed at all, but it also isn’t slow by any means either, and I love that I just get to savor every word in that way.

The Blinding Knife is better than The Black Prism in my opinion, and I bet the books will just keep getting better with each installment. I have never had such a visceral reaction to a book as with this one. Any book that gets that kind of reaction out of me is worth every star and rave review. Weeks is an excellent writer and this is an excellent and unique epic fantasy story that I can’t recommend enough.

“He who looks through only one lens lives in darkness.”

Review: ROOTS GREW WILD by Erica Hoffmeister

Rating: 4/5 stars

Roots Grew Wild is a short collection of free-verse poems that come together to tell a coming-of-age story of a girl and her family in the Midwest.

I especially enjoyed the writing style that Hoffmeister uses. Her writing evokes a lot of imagery through her ethereal sentences. I love the juxtaposition of roots to mean both familial roots and tree roots. She uses beautiful nature descriptions and earthy imagery alongside the story of the girl to create the tone.

Oftentimes with modern poetry, I don’t feel like there is much substance, unfortunately. There are broken sentences and missing punctuation to create an aesthetic and a *mood* but the poems lack actual meaning to me. That’s not how I felt with Roots Grew Wild. This collection is actually substantial and meaningful, and that is one of the main reasons I enjoyed it so much. The author has shared her experiences but has also written about them in a way that the reader can experience them too, feel her feelings, see the same sights. I love how evocative it is. These poems were written to transport the reader to another time and witness the main character’s emotions. I could relate to her feelings and connect with her.

I would recommend this short book if you like beautiful poetry collections that tell a deeper story and have beautiful descriptions of nature. It’s one I’ll be rereading in the future.

Review: THE BLACK PRISM by Brent Weeks

Rating: 5/5 stars

In The Black Prism, magic is based on colors, where drafters can create a solid form from the different colors in light waves. Each color creates a different texture and has a different property. But the more you draft color, the closer you come to your death because the magic is slowly killing you.

I have been looking forward to reading the Lightbringer series for quite a while, and that small bit about how the magic system worked was all I knew before starting. I didn’t know about the plot at all, but knowing about the color magic that slowly kills its user was enough to hook me into reading the book. While I’ve been excited to read this series, I’ve also felt a bit intimidated because each book is 600-700 pages and I knew it would be a commitment. I shouldn’t have been scared to start the series though because this book was so easy to read. I fell right into the story, even with the new and complex magic system, and I found myself engrossed in the plot and the characters and the magic. I usually can’t sit and read for hours on end but with this book I found it to be easy to do just that. I never wanted to put it down, but life’s duties kept calling.

I actually started this book by reading through the whole glossary and appendix because, a few chapters in, I already had questions and I didn’t want to be confused. This helped me understand the magic system and the world right from the beginning, which I found to be super useful. This is one of those books that I constantly kept referencing the information at the back to keep everything straight in my mind, and I’m so glad the author included these reference materials.

I’m also grateful for the map because I love to reference locations as they’re mentioned in the story. The only problem I had was that the map is upside down—South is at the top—and it took me five minutes of staring at it to realize this. I hope this has some important meaning we find out later because otherwise what’s the point of an upside-down map?

The description of the Chromeria with colorful buildings that turn to always be facing the sun sounds so neat and I wish I could see a city like that in real life, or at least some fanart depiction of it. But as much as I love the Chromeria so far, I feel like it is actually not a very good place.

This book had some pretty great characters. Gavin was a really neat protagonist. I enjoyed learning about him as the Prism and what those duties entail as far as keeping all the colors balanced in the world. He has a lot of secrets, and I loved discovering snippets of these throughout the story. For example, what are his seven purposes? I really want to know!

I also rather enjoyed Kip and the mystery surrounding his parentage because it was clear from the beginning that Gavin wasn’t telling anyone the full story. We got bits and pieces along the way, and I love a good mystery aspect in a book. Although I will say that Kip was rather impulsive at times. He would blurt out offensive statements then immediately be like “crap why did I say that?” I just wasn’t sure why he was acting that way but I guess that’s just who he is.

I still don’t know how I feel about Dazen. It’s interesting that we learned right from the beginning that he wasn’t dead as everyone suspected, and I’m curious to see how this will play out in future books. Because of very spoilery reasons, I actually feel sorry for him right now.

Karris was okay. I mostly just felt like she was angry the whole time, but I guess part of that can be expected because of her history with Gavin. I kept waiting for her to learn the full truth because I wanted so badly to see her reaction. I think I will like her more as the series progresses.

I really liked Liv from the first chapter. And knowing what her mission was and that the Prism didn’t know what or who she was in the beginning just added to the suspense and made me even more excited to keep reading about her. Plus I really like that she’s a superviolet drafter. For some reason, that’s the most interesting color to me, so I loved seeing what she could do with it. Also, she has me very intrigued with what she could do given her position at the end of the book. I’m very excited to see her character progression.

Even though I know Lord Omnichrome is the villain and a terrible person, I can’t help but agree with some of his ideals. What he says about the Chromeria makes sense in a way. The good are not always fully good and the bad are not always fully bad. I’m very curious to see how his beliefs affect other characters and the rest of the story in other books.

One minor problem I had was the writing style at times. Weeks’s writing was good for the most part but occasionally he would explain something and I wouldn’t understand what he was saying and I would be confused about that aspect of the world or magic system. I did have to reread a few paragraphs because of this issue, but for the most part, I thought the writing was good.

One thing, though, that was kind of jarring about Weeks’s writing style was that thoughts in the first person were not italicized. It really threw me off for the first few chapters that I saw it, but it gradually became a normal part of the story and I stopped noticing it as much. I thought this was an interesting way to approach writing in third person, and even though I didn’t think I would like it, I did. It was kind of like third-person limited mixed with first-person.

Something else I didn’t really like was how long the final battle scene was. It was almost two hundred pages long, and by the end, I was just exhausted of reading about the drafters fighting. I much preferred the non-combat scenes of the book. I’m positive there will be many more fight scenes in the later books, so I can only hope they do not last as long or they are written in a way that is more entertaining to me. I was fine with the first three-fourths, but during the very ending I was just wanting to be done with battle and I didn’t really care what happened anymore.

This book was very compelling, not only because of the story itself, but also because each chapter ended on a cliffhanger but the next chapter would be a new character’s perspective. I had to keep reading to find out what happened next for each of the five character perspectives. It’s been awhile since I read a book like this, one where I was actually excited to know what would happen next in such a way.

Overall, I thought The Black Prism was a fantastic book. It has a very unique and impressive magic system, a well-built world, a great cast of characters, some mysterious aspects, intense fight scenes, vivid imagery, and a compelling plot. The writing did take some getting used to in the beginning, but eventually I came to enjoy it. I would recommend to anyone who is looking for an enthralling fast-paced epic fantasy. I’m very much looking forward to where this series takes me on its journey.

“Moments of beauty sustain us through hours of ugliness.”

How I Rate Books

Everyone rates books differently, and I want to talk about my method for how I rate books.

I use the five-star rating system, and I rate books based on how much I personally enjoy them and connect with the story. If I read a critically acclaimed novel that everyone seems to love that I'm not connecting with but I can see why other people would love it, I'm most likely going to give it a lower rating because it wasn't a book for me, and I'm not rating books based on how anyone else would like them but on how I like them. But if I can see reasons why a different audience might like a book that I'm just not interested in, I'll at least mention the good aspects in my review despite my lower rating. I always strive to be fair in my ratings and reviews.

Here is my reading scale: 
Favorite     5-stars     4-stars     3-stars     2-stars     1-star     Did-Not-Finish

So for how I rate books, I start every book with a three-star rating in mind. Three stars is the middle of the scale, and by starting each book with that rating, I'm giving every book a fair chance.

What I do is if I read a book and nothing jumps out at me as being good or nothing jumps out at me as being bad, if the book feels middle-of-the-road or average, or if I liked the book but thought it was nothing special, I keep it at three stars.

If I'm reading a book and I'm just not connecting with the characters, I'm confused by the plot, I don't like the writing style, I'm having an issue with how something was talked about or handled, or I'm becoming uninterested in continuing on with the story, I will lower my rating to two stars. If these problems become even worse or the book just starts to downright frustrate or anger me, I will lower the rating again to one star. If I feel yet again like these problems continue and there is no redemption and I am just wasting my time reading the book, I will mark it as did-not-finish.

A note about not finishing books: I very rarely decide to put a book down and not continue reading it. Most of the books I haven't finished in the past were because my library hold expired and I was busy and never got around to finishing the book, or because the story really wasn't holding my interest even if there was nothing that I explicitly disliked (read: I was bored). There have been only a very small handful of titles that I did not finish because I truly disliked the books and the thought of reading them just made me dread reading anything at all. I try to finish all the books I start, and I generally only read books I think I'm going to enjoy anyway, but every so often I need to permanently put down a book.

Now as for the higher ratings, whenever I'm reading a book and I start to like the writing, the characters, the flow of the story, whenever something sticks out in my mind, I will move my rating to four stars. This is my most common rating. Then if I keep reading and I become further impressed by some aspect of the story that really stands out to me, or I feel like I literally cannot put the book down (this is actually quite rare for me), or I just love everything about the story, I will bump my rating up again to five stars. Then, if a five-star book keeps blowing my mind and keeps me utterly obsessed about the story, even long after I finish it, and it's a book I know I'll want to read again and again, it becomes one of my favorite books. (I have a favorites shelf on Goodreads, and at the time of writing this post, there are only 18 books on that shelf.)

Sometimes a book will start out going downhill to two stars but then work its way back up to three stars and occasionally even up to four stars. Usually if this is the case, I will rate the book three stars because that is the average rating for my reading experience with that book. Sometimes I will also give half stars to books, although since Goodreads doesn't allow half stars, this is uncommon and only noted in my reviews on this blog. I use a half star if I feel that the one rating is too low but the next rating is too high, that there was just enough of something in the book to keep me from rating it one way or the other. On Goodreads, though, I am forced to select a full-star rating, so I choose whichever one I think most closely reflects my feelings for that book.

There's the breakdown for how I rate books. I start at three stars and work my way up or down the scale, depending on how my reading experience goes. I know my system is a bit different from how I've seen others rate books, but it's the system that works the best for how my mind works.

Review: A GATHERING OF SHADOWS by V. E. Schwab

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

It’s probably strange that I’m reviewing this book when I didn’t review the first book, but I have stuff to say about A Gathering of Shadows whereas I simply enjoyed A Darker Shade of Magic without any further comment. I’ve been so hyped to read this series; I had heard nothing but amazing things about it and about Victoria Schwab’s writing style (plus these cover designs are absolutely some of my favorite covers ever), so I was immensely excited to finally read it.

The first book was really good; I liked the plot and the characters and the world. But in the sequel, I expected a bit more. I liked this book. But I didn’t love it. I wanted to love it, but I think the nature of listening to the story on audio leaves something to be desired, plus I’m certain I missed various details along the way. I’m pretty sure that whenever I physically reread this series (because I certainly will at some point), the story will be more vivid in my mind and I will be able to enjoy it more than I did now.

I wanted more world development in this book. I wanted to know more about the differences between the Londons, between the politics and cultures of the worlds. Does life go on the same in each London or does the magic have a bigger influence than we know? I was hoping the story would extend beyond London, as well. Is there a black, a white, a red, and a grey dimension of everywhere on the planet or just London? I think my biggest disappointment with this book is that I wanted to know more about the four Londons and what makes them different from each other, which is described only in the basest sense. This story could have been so much grander in scale, but I feel like Schwab sort of missed the potential on crafting it into an epic fantasy. The coolest part of the story, to be honest, was Kell’s coat of multiple coats; I want a coat like that.

The main focus of this story is in developing the characters and explaining what is happening in their lives. There is much less time spent on developing the setting and talking about the magic. I like a lot of descriptions of setting and place, but there really weren’t that many definite scenes painted out for me.

I really wish this book had a map of the world. Especially since Lila is on a ship and traveling around, the characters kept mentioning different locations and I would have liked to know where they were. It would be extra cool to get colored images of the four Londons as well, to see the colorful differences between them, but I clearly want too much out of my books because there are no visual indicators in this book at all. (I know there is a poster map that comes in the trilogy box set, which depicts the four Londons, but it is more for artistic purposes than it is an actual useful map. What I want is a map that I can look at throughout the story to follow the characters’ journey along with them.)

This book didn’t go at all where I expected it would go. I don’t even know anymore what I expected, but pirates and a royal competition were definitely not on that list. I’m kind of impartial to pirates so I didn’t exactly love those parts, but I didn’t dislike them either. And as for the competition plotline, I felt like it didn’t really further the story but was just thrown in there for something interesting to have the characters do. (I’ve actually grown really tired of stories that revolve around competitions as the main event in the story, and hearing that’s what this book was about made me roll my eyes a little.)

I wanted to love this book so so much. I still enjoyed it, and I’ll definitely be reading A Conjuring of Light and other books by Schwab, but this series isn’t one of my new favorites yet as I had hoped and thought it would be, which makes me a little sad. For some reason, I have very little success with the most popular books that receive all the hype and that everyone seems to love. I keep reading them but they keep falling short for me. I’m really hoping this is a case of “it’s not you, it’s me” because of the audiobook, but I won’t know until I do eventually reread this series.

As far as the audiobook narration goes, it was just okay. The narrator for A Darker Shade of Magic was wonderful and did a splendid job. But then they changed narrators for some reason and the narrators for A Gathering of Shadows were less good. The male had a very monotonous voice that I struggled to focus on, and the female was fine but not great.

Review: HEIR OF FIRE by Sarah J. Maas

Rating: 3.5/5 stars

I’m a little conflicted on my rating for this book because I think the first hundred pages or so were solid, as were the last twenty pages, but the whole middle of the book just wasn’t there for me. I enjoyed Throne of Glass more than this book, but I definitely think Heir of Fire is a stronger book in the series. Ultimately, this book was a bit confusing for me in multiple ways, which ended up hindering my enjoying the story to its fullest.

There were quite a few new characters who subsequently talked about the histories and lives of a bunch of non-present characters, and the lineage was something I had trouble keeping straight, especially when Aedion was talking to his men about the rulers of Terrasen. My eyes kind of glazed over at that part so I hope it wasn’t vital information.

And then when Celaena met Queen Maeve, that scene was confusing too because I thought she knew what she was going to Wendlyn to do and who she was going to see, but she acted all terrified and surprised like she never expected to run into Fae royalty there.

I actually didn’t prefer Celaena as the main character in this book. I found myself looking forward to Chaol’s, Dorian’s, Sorscha’s, and Aedion’s chapters much more. I guess I’m just kind of tired of reading about Celaena flip-flopping back and forth between being ruthless and being soft.

The only character who I didn’t care to read about was Manon, the new fierce witch girl. In the beginning, I didn’t really mind her, but the more I read about her the more I just didn’t care about her training her wyvern or preparing for the king’s War Games or fighting with the other witch clans, and I really struggled to get through her chapters. She was overall a rather unlikeable character, and I hope she doesn’t show up in future books, but she probably will, unfortunately.

Alternatively, the character who I started out not really caring for but ended up liking was Rowan. He wasn’t a particularly likable character at the start but I love his bond with Celaena, and I’m looking forward to seeing where that connection goes. I hope their relationship stays platonic though because I want her to get back with Chaol again.

This book has cemented that I like Chaol more than Dorian as a character. In Throne of Glass I liked them equally, and in Crown of Midnight I liked Chaol only slightly more, but now after Heir of Fire, I much prefer him over Dorian, who has just become somewhat melodramatic.

Who I ended up being surprised that I liked, though, was Sorscha. She was more than she appeared, with how much she seemed to know about the prince and Chaol and Celaena. I’m happy Dorian found someone to turn to and trust during this book, but I am sad I won’t be seeing her in future books.

At first, I really hated the piece of crap that was Aedion, but he slowly grew on me—and I grudgingly accepted that I started to like him by the halfway point in the story. Once I got to hear his thoughts and emotions, especially regarding Aelin, I started to realize he wasn’t as bad as he pretended to be. I still don’t fully trust him, but I no longer think he’s an insufferable jerk.

Heir of Fire felt somewhat similar in plot to Throne of Glass, with Celaena training and needing to prove herself at the end in order to get what she wanted. And what was she even doing in Wendlyn? She went over there to dispatch the king and his son, yet when she gets there she totally forgets that plan and mopes around in the city for weeks until she’s summoned to see Queen Maeve, who instructs her to train and prove herself before she can enter Doranelle. So that’s what Celaena does for a few hundred pages, paying no heed to her initial quest, not even so much as mentioning that she’s flouting the king’s orders.

And then why was Norrak sent to kill Celaena? The king didn’t know what she was up to, and for all he know, she could have been fulfilling her duty by killing the king of Wendlyn like she was supposed to. There was never a chapter from the king’s perspective so we don’t know what his thoughts were, although I wish we could have read from his point of view because even though he’s a terrible person, his is the most interesting perspective to read from.

Another thing I had an issue with in this book is that there were multiple scenes that started out in third-person limited point of view from one character’s perspective and then suddenly switched to another character’s point of view without so much as a break to indicate such had happened. Or the perspective would switch to third-person omniscient and that was just confusing because I couldn’t tell who was supposed to be thinking. This was just poor writing in my opinion; viewpoints should never be mixed without some sort of page break, and they should stay in a limited perspective if that’s how they start.

I personally don’t think Sarah J. Maas has the best writing style. I found it hard to understand what was being described or what was happening until well after the fact, like she just didn’t explain anything well enough. I felt like information was constantly referenced that I had no prior knowledge of; like details were talked about in a way that I should have known them already but I didn’t. And since I’m reading these books back-to-back, it’s not like I’m forgetting major details; I just don’t think these pieces of information were explained well and that’s why I was confused. For example, someone made a comment like, “who do you think betrayed us?” and this was the first I had known of a betrayal, like it was never clear earlier that they had indeed been betrayed, and that’s not a detail I should have missed. Or about Celaena’s Fae magic—do all Fae have magic? Is it always elemental magic like Celaena’s and Rowan’s? And is Celaena’s human form her animal form? Do all Fae have an animal form but not all their animal forms are human? Just little details like that, that I’m sure were implied but never outright stated, were what caused confusion for me and ultimately made me feel distant from the story. I mentioned this writing technique to some friends who have already finished this series and they all confirmed that that’s just how Maas writes, and I don’t like it. There’s still quite a bit I’m confused about after finishing Heir of Fire, and I don’t like when an author doesn’t explain details well enough so that I have to intuit my way through the story and then misinterpret information. This writing criticism is my biggest complaint about Heir of Fire, and I feel like it will happen again in future books, which doesn’t make me excited to continue on with the series.

I just wasn’t as into this book as I was with previous installments. Even during action scenes that should have had me on the edge of my seat, heart pounding, I found them boring and I tried to read quickly to move on. The whole middle made me kind of upset and not very excited to keep reading, and then the last twenty pages finally became more interesting. Heir of Fire felt like a big book of set up for the rest of the series. Lots of new characters were introduced, lots of new abilities were revealed—and then honed to be lethal—lots of betrayals happened, lots of deaths occurred, and much of this book felt like a catalyst for what’s to come in future books.

To be honest—and I feel bad saying this—but my interest has just waned and I’m not feeling super inclined to finish the series. I’m going to, or at least I’m going to try, but for some reason I’m not obsessed with the Throne of Glass series as it seems everyone else is. I don’t dislike it, but it’s just not capturing my attention as much as when I started. For now, I’m going to take a break from it and read something else, but I do intend to finish it in a month or two, and I hope by then I will be more excited about it.

Review: HARRY POTTER AND THE GOBLET OF FIRE by J. K. Rowling

Rating: 5/5 stars

I forgot how much of this book was not the tri-wizard tournament. It plays such a crucial role that I thought it was basically the whole book, but really it’s just three chapters. And the first task doesn’t even start until a third of the way into the story.

I did feel like the story was much more drawn out than in past books (I mean look at the size of this tome) and had lots of details and scenes added for fun that didn’t really pertain to the story, but I didn’t mind. I don’t think the story ever felt slow-moving, but instead, the extra details just made it more fun and enjoyable to read.

I think it’s interesting that the crux of the story of Harry Potter doesn’t really start until the very end of this book or even not until book five. The first four books kind of stand on their own and each has a mostly self-contained story. There are, of course, small pieces that carry over (like the two horcruxes being destroyed in the first two books, but even then we didn’t know what they were), but overall there’s not the overarching feel of a fluid story.

I am very much looking forward to starting The Order of the Phoenix to really start reading about the heart of the story. As much as I enjoyed rereading The Goblet of Fire, especially since there were so many details I had forgotten, I’ve been most excited during this rereading process to read books five, six, and seven. I really feel like the most plot development and life-altering decisions happen during those three books, plus that’s when most of the long-awaited and important details are revealed.

This is kind of a pointless and short review, but it reminded me how much I do love the Harry Potter books.

Review: CROWN OF MIDNIGHT by Sarah J. Maas

Rating: 4/5 stars

I liked Crown of Midnight more than Throne of Glass, but so far The Assassin’s Blade has still been my favorite. I thought Celaena’s character was much more developed in this book, and she finally started to act more like an assassin than she did in the first book.

*The rest of this review has SPOILERS for Crown of Midnight.*

Early in the book, the name Aelin Galathynius came up as being the lost heir of Terrasen, and I know that the main character in the later books is named Aelin, and that Celaena’s name is not her real name, and that Celaena is from Terrasen, so my guess was that Celaena is the lost heir of Terrasen but doesn’t know it because she’s been away since she was so young, and she’s actually named Aelin. This was pure speculation, but lo and behold, at the end of the book we learn that Celaena is actually Aelin—and she knows it. Lots of clues led up to that revelation, so I wasn’t very surprised to learn the truth, but I am pleased I guessed correctly who she was.

I’ll stand by what I said in an earlier review: Celaena is described as the fiercest assassin in Adarlan, yet she is actually quite compassionate, and she wants to kill only people who deserve it. And even then she still has reservations, like how she spares the people she’s assigned to kill by the king simply because they’re innocent. She’s not quite the brutal assassin I imagined and was led to believe, but I guess having morals is a good thing, even for an assassin.

There were some scenes when she was brutal and full of vengeance and I honestly liked those moments. The action scene that happened in the warehouse when she’s rescuing Chaol is the most exciting part of this book and my favorite action scene I’ve read about Celaena so far. She was so fierce and ruthless and I loved every minute of it because she just dropped all those men like they were nothing. I wish more of the book could have been like that part. I would have liked to see more killing, especially an attempt on the king’s life, although I doubt that will happen until Kingdom of Ash because there’s so much more story to be told surrounding him.

The King of Adarlan was actually my favorite perspective to read from. His was a rare point of view to see, but we learned a lot in this book about him and his plans and his secrets. He is a very cunning man, and I want to know more about what he is hiding. I hope we get more scenes from him in later books as well. It’s clear there are a lot of mysteries and lies circling around the castle, and I sense a major betrayal at some point in the series, if not a handful of minor betrayals as well. People in power know things and are keeping that information hidden for massive plans of destruction and control.

The magical elements of the series are slowly coming into play and I am curious how the story will change once magic makes a full return (if that ever happens). I’m also curious about the limits of the magic the king is using from the Wyrdkeys. I also wonder if he banned traditional magic but still kept it for his own use only to become the most powerful ruler, or if he came across it later on after he banned it, or if he even has access to this magic at all (it was not totally clear in the book). As I had hoped in my review of Throne of Glass, the nature of the Wyrd and Wyrdmarks are described more fully in this book. We actually learn a lot about this form of “magic,” and I was pleased that so much information was revealed to Celaena. I still would like to know more about the magic that’s not related to the Wyrd though. What is it? What can you do with it?

I expected the Throne of Glass series to have a classical fantasy setting but the more I read, the more supernatural it gets. I’m not opposed to magic in this kind of setting but all these demons and inhuman-like creatures keep showing up and that’s just not what I wanted to happen and it honestly made me a bit disappointed. The last sixty or so pages of Crown of Midnight took me so long to read and made me less excited to start Heir of Fire because I know there will be more supernatural elements and creatures because that’s the direction the story is going, but I’m determined to finish this series anyway! I guess I also want more action and assassinations to happen, and not just Celaena fighting monsters but her fighting and killing evil people, that’s what I wanted to see. The Assassin’s Blade was my favorite because it had the most action and interesting scenes and character development, and it was the closest to what I was expecting out of this series.

I’m happy Nehemia was in this book again; she still might be my favorite character, at least thus far. However, it took me the whole book to decide whether she was on Celaena’s side or not because I couldn’t tell what she was truly after. I am sad that she was killed, but we needed an important death in this book as a compelling force for Celaena to proactively search out the answers she needs now.

Chaol is growing on me. In Throne of Glass, I liked Dorian and Chaol equally. But now, I like Chaol more, but that might just be because he was more present and we got to see more of his emotions in this book. I loved his (short-lived) relationship with Celaena and the slow build up it took to get there. There’s definitely not insta-love going on in these books, which I appreciate. Quite the opposite, actually, when I was itching for something to happen every time they were in the same room. I liked Chaol and Celaena together, and I really hope that they mend the rift between them and revive their relationship eventually because I like her with Chaol more than with Dorian. I am sad that they split so soon, but I figured something had to happen because it’s rare for a relationship to be cemented by book two of a seven-book series. I don’t want her to flip flop back and forth all series though, so if she ends up staying with Dorian for the rest of the series then I’ll be fine.

Archer was the most infuriating character, I swear. He’s good, he’s bad, he’s good, he’s bad. He’s about to die, he lived, he’s on this side, he’s on that side. I was so glad when Celaena finally ended him, like seriously, I’d been waiting for that to happen for a few hundred pages.

Crown of Midnight was a good installment in the Throne of Glass series. I’m so glad I’m finally reading all these books. The story ended with a big reveal about Celaena and her Fae heritage and about the Wyrdkeys and magic, which is going to lead to some interesting adventures for Celaena as she travels to Wendlyn in Heir of Fire. I’m excited to see where the story goes from here because there are so many open ends right now.